Pandora's Box
"Seriously Barton, where's your sense of adventure?" Tony admonished Clint as they strode up to the doorway of the tall, imposing manor house. They were in upstate New York on a tip-off that a gang of punks had been using the place for illegal 'magic' experiments. Personally, the archer couldn't see why Doctor Strange couldn't be the one to deal with this; he was the one who was meant to be dealing with all this weird crap, after all.
"Back at the Tower," he huffed back at Tony. Tony was safe. He was in his stupid, flashy, flashing armour. Besides his bow, Clint had nothing. Usually, that didn't bother him, but in the face of kids who might be able to turn him inside out he decided that an exoskeleton to hold the squashy bits in would be quite nice. Right now, he just felt exposed. "Why aren't we making Strange do this, again?"
"Because he's not in this dimension at the moment," the billionaire replied, still unsure why he even believed that. "Besides, S.H.I.E.L.D reckoned we could take this on. They didn't even think they were using real magic, because there really isn't any."
"There are greater things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio," Clint mumbled under his breath, earning himself a look of surprise from Tony that he completely ignored as he knocked on the door. Natasha had wanted to do something a bit more stimulating than just go to watch another monster movie, so he'd asked Banner to book them something. He'd come back with Hamlet tickets and Clint had expected to spend the evening snoring quietly against Natasha's shoulder. It still hadn't actually been as exciting as a monster movie, but he found that it had still been quite enjoyable and he'd learned a new phrase to fire at Stark when he chose not to believe what was more than a little bit obvious to everyone else.
"Maybe there is magic in the world," was all his team mate could think to reply as the door miraculously failed to open through magic or any other means. "You managed to string together a whole sentence that didn't involve arrows."
"Shaddup, Stark," Hawkeye's response was automatic as he tested the door handle. To his great concern the solid oak door was unlocked and he nodded to his friend to have a repulsor ready as he slipped the thing open a crack. Unlocked doors tended to mean that either someone expected you, or that something was horribly wrong inside. Iron Man obliged, powering one of his repulsors up slightly as the two slipped into the darkened entrance.
The inside of the place was as grim as the outside, and the two Avengers slipped forward in total silence as they investigated each room. Even the usual clanking and clattering of Tony's suit seemed muted in the dusty atmosphere as they methodically worked their way through the mansion's upstairs. No one was home, clearly, as nothing came to check to see what was going on and who the intruders were. It didn't do much to ease the tension, and Clint kept an arrow nocked to his bow as he slipped forward and opened the door of yet another empty room. Sighing slightly, he closed the door and looked back at Tony. "Isn't there anything on your sensors?" he asked for the fourth time in less than twenty minutes.
"No," Tony's voice was a little terse as he explained himself yet again. "Jarvis isn't picking anyone up, and there's been no activity here for days. Even though we saw people come in here this morning."
"Got any science to explain that one to me?" Clint own voice was strained as he started to contemplate bugging out and waiting for Strange to come in and deal with this.
"It's called the science of 'Shut up Hawkeye,'" the reply that was fired back at him made him consider it all the more. Something just plain wasn't right, and he wasn't sure that he wanted to find out what it was.
"So if you don't know either, maybe we should just finish up checking the place over, quarantine it and wait for Doctor Strange?"
"You scared of something weird? There'll be a secret trapdoor and some tech that's frying up Jarvis, that's all."
"Sure Tony," Clint didn't believe him. "You keep telling yourself that."
Tony was spared from having to answer Barton's ridiculous cowardice by returning down the sweeping grand staircase. The archer was ahead of him, and had chosen a door to go through. Double doors, actually, that led straight into the place's dining room. It was the first place that actually showed some signs of life: There were glasses on the table, some half full of what looked like red wine slowly evaporating and reducing down to a sticky syrup. Four plates held the remains of some sort of meat and vegetables; Clint didn't want to get close enough to find out what. Lying on its side near to the plates was a small wooden box. It was plain, carved roughly from some dark wood and hinged in brass. Looking a little closer, it had a brass clasp as well and seemed to be in a better state than everything else, nor did it really fit in with the tasteful ornaments around. It had the whole of his attention, and he slipped closer to the thing.
"Tony?" He just about remembered he had a teammate to fall back on and drew his hand back from touching the box, instead moving his fingers to point at it. "What do you make of this?"
He waited for a few seconds as Jarvis' sensors curled around the box, probing and trying to peer through the clasp. His impatience to open the thing was growing, and the time it took for Tony to answer for his AI was interminable. '"Nothing on the sensors. No energy. Nothing. It's just a lump of wood."
That was good enough for Clint, and he reached forward to pick it up. All of his reservations were fading, and he couldn't for the life of him think why he was so desperate for Stephen to come and take over. This was just a house, after all. People probably came and went all the time. There was nothing there. The rough box felt surprisingly warm in the Avenger's hand and he turned the thing over to investigate it. Even though it had been roughly carved from the wood, there was still nothing there that could give him splinters; age and handling had worn it smooth.
"Thought you were creeped out by all of this?" Tony's voice barely filtered through to him, and it took a moment for Clint to realise that his friend was actually addressing him. Everything felt a little foggy around the edges; he needed to open the box and the Iron Man was slowing him down.
"It's a box, Tony," he replied tersely. "Nothing's going to happen." To prove the point, the archer opened the lid of the box. And, just as he'd predicted, nothing happened. The room was still the same; its last meal still mouldering on the table; the same breeze still curling gently through from the still open door. It made Clint turn, a triumphant smirk on his face.
"See?" He demanded, before he realised that there wasn't a lot to see. Tony wasn't there. The distinct lack of the billionaire made Clint frown slightly. It wasn't like him to just wander off… Actually, no, it was quite like him to wander off. But he would have made some sound, and the hearing aids the archer was wearing that day were Stark-made. There was no way at all they wouldn't have picked up the rattles and clanks of the suit as Tony became distracted by something shiny, a reading from Jarvis or a pretty woman perhaps.
"Tony?" Clint called, tapping his ear to make sure his comms line was active as he did. There was nothing but a weird static on the other side, which was something else strange. Stark's stuff just didn't stutter and crackle like that. Almost nothing could interfere with his hearing aids, it was why he liked them so much, and it was more than enough to make him dump the little box on the table again, pulling his bow back into both hands and smoothly nocking an arrow on the string. It was a small comfort, he thought as he slipped forwards, all concepts of anything that wasn't finding his friend flushed out of his mind.
Disturbingly, Tony wasn't back in the entrance hall, either. It made Clint glance down at the dust-covered floor, but the only tracks he could see were his and Tony's from before. It made him hesitate, before turning and heading back through the open dining room door again, cutting straight through to the small exit at the far end of the room. It opened out into a much larger hall - a ballroom? - even though physically it couldn't possibly have been there and he ducked out again to look at the unassuming white door he'd just passed through. By his judgement, it should have led to a kitchen, not this. It was almost enough to make him close the door fully, turn his back on the white, ancient panelling and run out of the house to get hold of Strange. One thing stopped him, though: Tony. He was going to have to go into that room, even though all of his senses were screaming at him to do something, anything, that wasn't so completely idiotic. The room had felt… felt… wrong. Worse than wrong. It made the archer huff a sigh of unease. When he got hold of his idiotic friend he was going to beat the inevitable smug look out of his baby-blue eyes, especially as this would be some high-handed prank designed to make him realise that stupid magic wasn't real. That was more than enough to give him the confidence to walk through the door again, slamming it as hard as he could behind him to carry himself forward on its waves of sound.
"Okay Stark, this isn't fun-" It took a few precious seconds for his eyes to catch up to his voice, and the bile that rose cut off the rest of his sentence. This time, the ballroom was full and the cacophony of noise that hit his hearing aids threatened to overwhelm him. The sounds were those of Carson's, the carnival he'd left behind years ago; the ride music; laughter; shouting; he would even swear he could hear animal noises. There was certainly the stink of them in the air, mixed with the stench of decay and rot. It was that which kept making feel like he wanted to find a corner and hurl. Finally, his eyes caught up to what was going on, and it felt like a scream had risen and died in his throat.
There were people in the ballroom now, filling it to capacity and beyond. No. These weren't people. Or if they were they were some sort of cruel parody of them. Torn remains of bright Sunday clothes, summer dresses, even the costumes from the carnival (horrifyingly, some of them even seemed to be wearing a ripoff of his old carnival get-up) clung to frighteningly bony limbs. On second, extremely reluctant, glance, some of those limbs were bones. It helped him to make sense of why the air stank of rotting flesh. Everyone in the room was dead. Apart from him. If it went any worse, he realised, it probably would include him as well and he tried to stagger back, grasping for the door. As he moved he stumbled, bouncing off of a skeletal figure that finally dragged the cry of shock, which had been frozen in fear, from his lips as he hit the ground hard. The Swordsman looked down at him from half a face; one eye nothing more than a blank sinkhole looking into oblivion, the other cold and lifeless. It filled him with horror and he tried to scrabble away, his bow forgotten in his panic.
"Jacques," Clint began, trying to cover it. Trying to do something, anything, to force his body to react the way he wanted it to. "What the hell's…" For the second time in as many minutes, he found himself running out of words as he spotted what he was looking for in the very worst possible way. Hovering up near the chandelier, like an impossible Icarus flying far too close to the sun, was Tony. The suit looked like it had been through sheer Hell, scarred and battered in a way that the bright red and gold armour his team mate's armour simply hadn't been less than five minutes ago. It didn't help to calm the archer's panic, and he scrabbled back again, trying to get away from Duquesne's shambling corpse as he slapped at the hearing aids deep in his ear. The figure did nothing to stop him, it merely watched passively from its hollow eyes as Clint frantically hit at the hearing aids to activate the comms link again.
"Tony!" he gabbled desperately, utterly failing to keep his voice as calm as it should be. It would get him so much grief later. "Stark, we have to go. Now. Blow a hole in the wall so we can get out, then burn it down. Strange can have the ashes if he wants."
Tony didn't answer, but to his great relief, the Iron Man armour turned towards him and slowly descended from its place on the ceiling. It wasn't blowing anything up, nor was it trying to chase away the zombies (damn he hated using that word, but it was the closest thing he could find) that were suddenly starting to take an unhealthy interest in him, but Tony was coming. Everything would be okay, he told himself as his shoulders hit the back wall. That had to mean that the door was there, but, risking a glance back, the thing had gone. Completely. That wasn't right, he realised. He hadn't turned once, only walked a few paces forward into the colossal room that was now like a scene from the Walking Dead.
"Tony," he tried again, panic still lacing his voice. "Make us a door. Get us out of here, now!"
To his great dismay, the armour landed in front of him, standing over him in a way he didn't quite like instead of destroying the wall like he should be doing. Worse, the zombies were definitely not looking at the new arrival like a special take on tinned meat. Barely able to breathe, and certainly unable to get himself off of the floor, Clint looked up at his friend with a rapidly growing sense of dread.
"Tony, come on," Clint's voice was quieter and much less confident now. "We have to go."
"Why?" Even distorted by the suit's electronics, there was something very, very wrong with Tony's voice and it chilled Clint to his core. It was cold, creaking, like it was coming from a long way away from lungs that weren't used to controlling air. As that one, horrifying word was spoken, the armour's faceplate opened and it was all Clint could do to keep himself from shouting. Again. Whatever the hell the thing in there was, it wasn't his friend. Stark's face was skeletal, grey skin barely clinging to his skull. What was left of his beard was sparse and straggly, huge chunks of it torn away along with the skin, leaving angry welts and unnaturally bright red flesh behind. Those baby-blue eyes were milky, barely even retaining their colour and when the thing opened its mouth to speak, its teeth were yellow with decay and full of gaps. "Kinda like it here," it wheezed, raising a hand slowly to point at the archer, who felt like his whole body had turned to jelly. "Maybe you should stay too."
The sight of his friend's repulsor flickering almost painfully to life finally inspired Clint to move, rolling aside just as the blast hit the wall where his head had been seconds before. It took most of his strength to swallow the idea that his friend's corpse was trying to murder him and he lurched to his feet, reaching into his pocket and launching the smoke bomb he found there straight at Tony's dead eyes. The stupid mask snapped down to protect his face, but it had at least bought him a split second to get into the crowd and try to disappear. He desperately needed his bow and he cursed himself for allowing himself to drop it. Only thing was, the crowd of… people… zombies… whatever… didn't seem as benign as they had done even a minute before and bony hands grabbed and caught at him while behind him he heard the air shriek as another blast ripped behind his head. As he spotted his bow, forgotten on the floor paces away, the sound of Iron Man's armour taking off reached him and he realised that one way or another he was screwed.
The plan had been to get as high as possible, somewhere he could fire into the crowd and be safe; but, with Tony Zombie now in the air above him and raining down shots, it was now more than obvious that making himself a target like that was going to be a cripplingly stupid move. Sheer luck helped him as he dived to the floor, rolling and snatched up his fallen weapon. It helped him to feel more like the Avenger he was meant to be. Finally, he was able to nock an arrow to his bow and he fired it into the floor. To his eternal gratitude, it was a trick arrow that emitted a pulse that threw his shambling pursuers backwards. It didn't help with the ones in front of him, nor the flying zombie in a tin can, but at least it gave him enough breathing room to snatch an EMP arrow and fire it at the man who had once been one of his oldest, closest friends. Frustratingly, Tony shot it out of the air before returning to bombarding Clint from the air. It was getting harder and harder to avoid the blasts too, like he was starting to run through thick tar as true panic started to cloud his mind. Skidding to a stop in a relatively clear area of the ballroom, he shot at the armour again, almost beside himself when it was yet again shot aside. As he ran again, launching himself into the air and kicking two more zombies aside, a tiny, desperate thought wondered whether it would be easier to just give in, but he forced it aside to run for the next wall, desperately searching for a way out as his breath came in frantic gasps.
The panic was affecting his judgement now, and he was starting to shut down. It made him miss two of the zombies until it was too late and he was taken down by one in the remains of a Sunday dress, resplendent with bright roses and unfathomable stains, and one that appeared to be wearing his old costume. That was embarrassing, he thought as he tried to push himself back to his feet, but the things had landed on top of him and he was completely trapped. No death blow came, however, and he looked up to see Tony's armour descending towards him again while he was pinned and helpless. He refused to think of the thing as being Tony himself. It wasn't and it never would be his friend.
"Stark, please," he tried again to see if he could make any impact on what was left of the man. "This isn't you. This isn't what you do."
There was silence from the armour, the battered faceplate looking more eerie and inhuman than it ever had. It raised its hand again, and this time Clint realised there was going to be no escape. It didn't stop him from struggling, but there was nowhere to go. He still refused to look away or close his eyes, choosing to stare his end in the face as the repulsor began to power and everything seemed to slow down inexorably. There was a burst of air, bringing with it the scent of ozone as everything around him burned, but bizarrely the blue light that washed over him came from behind him. A man's voice carried over the noise in the room, deep and powerful and Tony's armour staggered back, the metal starting to crumple around him. It forced the repulsor threatening him away and the breath the archer didn't even know he was holding finally flowed out. The air still stank of ozone, and in fact it seemed to be getting worse. It was overwhelming him, either that or his fear was finally starting to take effect and the world around him began to blur. This was the last thing he needed, but he couldn't stop it. Even the hands holding him down felt like they'd been torn away as he slumped backwards. As the world faded away, the voice rang out again and he could have sworn he caught the movement of someone walking… no… striding past him to confront the armour. The last thing he heard was the shriek of tearing metal as oblivion hit him like Mjolnir.
"…Barton…?" Clint was certain that someone was calling him. Male? Yeah. Not Tony's voice. Not Steve's. Much deeper. Familiar. Couldn't place it. "Barton."
"Mmmn…" was about all he could face saying. His mouth felt like he'd been licking the Hulk's shorts… not that he knew exactly what that tasted like. At all. Why did he have his eyes closed? What had happened? The thought hit him in the head: Tony. His friend's blue eyes, milky and dead, filled his vision and jolted him awake as the sights and smells of the ballroom invaded his memory. This time, he couldn't stop the bile that rose up in his mouth and he rolled quickly onto his side to vomit. His sides heaved and he gasped for air, totally disorientated. Another jolt of memories hit him squarely and he retched again as Tony's face swam in front of his vision. This time, he tried to force himself to his feet.
"Tony," he mumbled, unable to hold his weight and a strong pair of hands caught him before he fell into the disgusting puddle underneath him. The feeling of hands holding him still again made him panic, afraid that he'd see Stark standing over him in that awful dilapidated armour about to open fire and tear him apart. It made him struggle, but the hands (warm hands?) kept him from falling still and instead helped him to slump onto a clear piece of floor.
"Barton," the man's voice spoke again and Clint paused. He definitely knew it. "Open your eyes. It's over, you're safe."
"Tony," he mumbled again, as the sound of someone retching reached his ears. Struggling against his pounding head, he forced his eyes to open a fraction and he found himself looking up into the fierce eyes of Doctor Strange. The Doctor was standing over him, and it made Clint blink in confusion. They clearly weren't in the ballroom anymore; he suspected it was the dining room yet again and he strained a little to look around for the source of the retching.
"Stark is fine," Strange told him, pointing over Clint's shoulder and turning him to look. "You were both fortunate I was able to make it when I did. It would not have been long before you both succumbed to the box."
The archer hadn't been listening properly to the half-explanation, instead twisting to make sure that Tony was human again. Sure enough, his friend was on his hands and knees, his mask open and he too was being violently sick. It didn't matter. He was safe, and finally he looked back at the Sorcerer Supreme.
"What do you mean 'succumbed'?" He asked, before realising that that just made him sound illiterate. "What the hell happened?"
"I assume you've heard of Pandora's Box?'"Strange asked, helping him to sit back on his heels. His fellow Avenger nodded, rubbing at his head as Tony staggered over to listen to the totally incomprehensible and most likely wrong explanation that was going to be offered. It was always better to indulge a man who could turn you inside out without thinking overly hard about it. "This is similar, although its provenance is real. It belonged to a great sorcerer of the nineteenth century, a man known as Papus."
"A con man, then," Tony snorted, helping Clint to his feet. Both were a little shaky, but Stark at least had the armour to help him stand.
"Did what happened to you both feel like a con?" Strange replied calmly, watching the two of them. They seemed to be recovering well, and were suffering no ill effects at least.
"No," Clint shook his head and immediately regretted it. "But you still haven't explained to us what the hell it was."
"It was a container for souls," the explanation when it came was simple, and slightly sketchy in the least. "An experiment that went badly wrong. I think he intended it to help the human soul pass into the afterlife in safety and happiness; but, as you saw, it does not do that. It pulls the souls of the living, entombing them as eternal prisoners. By the time I found that box, Stark had already succumbed and you were almost taken."
"How did you get me back then?" It was Tony who spoke up. "I don't remember anything after Barton opened the damned thing. How did you even get here? Weren't you out in some dimension or other?"
"Wong contacted me. He was worried about you two; he said you'd decided to investigate at S.H.I.E.L.D's behest, rather than waiting for me to return. Once he mentioned this house, the home of a collector of Papus' more… unusual belongings, I returned to deal with this. You had only just fallen, Stark, and so I was able to force you to return to your body with ease."
"What about the others?" Clint asked, gesturing at the remains of dinner that still sat untouched. "We had reports of kids in here."
"I'm sorry Barton,' this time the Sorcerer Supreme sighed. Sometimes there was nothing he could do, and it still broke his heart when he couldn't save everyone. The look on Barton and Stark's faces showed him they thought the same, and a moment's silence settled heavily around them. 'The only fresh souls I could find in there were you two."
"What now then?" Tony asked, looking down at the evil box, still on the floor. "What about that thing? Destroy it?"
"No," Strange said hastily, putting a hand on top of Iron Man's charging repulsor and pushing it down. He stooped down to scoop the little box up, checking that the clasp was still safe. "If you blow that thing apart you could unleash its effects on the world. I will take care of it. It will be safe in the Sanctum Santorum, where no one's hands can touch them."
"You sure about that?" Clint asked, turning to leave. He needed to get out of this place. Now. It was starting to make him feel sick again, and Stephen would clearly be in charge of the cleanup here. They weren't needed. "I mean, you've had your fair share of monster attacks."
"So has Avengers Tower, and I'm not even considering S.H.I.E.L.D," came the response as Strange shepherded the other two out. "It's the safest option still."
Finally, Tony nodded as he moved with Clint back to their car. Iron Man could fly, but Hawkeye usually had to consider far more pedestrian routes; especially with his sky cycle currently grounded. It was going to take a lot of time and space to process this, but they were safe for now and he wasn't going to sleep for a hell of a long time to come. "Thanks Stephen," he said at last. "Don't let that thing see the light of day again."
"I won't," Strange promised as he watched the sun starting to set behind the house. There were some victories that just didn't feel like one and the Sorcerer Supreme felt the need to suppress a shudder. There was more weight to the box now secreted in his robes than wood; another weight to settle on his shoulders. Another touch of darkness on his soul.